Las Vegas Realtor Steve Hawks one of the leading consumer advocates for victims of mortgage fraud.

Las Vegas real estate experts Steve Hawks and Jason Van Zant bring to light the massive mortgage fraud that had led to the unprecedented drop in the Las Vegas real estate market. Las Vegas Realtor Steve Hawks discusses in detail how fraudulent transactions occur. Steve Hawks states the sales price is raised to the highest amount possible then the amount above what the true value is worth is given back to the buyer or third party entity. The most devastating type of mortgage fraud can be when a third party approaches an individual and offers them to be a real estate investor. The third party will offer to select the property and arrange for all the loans on the property.Then after the homes have been purchased the third party will rent out the homes, collect the rent and not make the mortgage payments. Thereby making a huge profit at the purchase with a huge sum of money at the close of escrow. Secondly making a monthly income by collecting rent but not paying the mortgage.

The average consumer trusting the so called professional believes they are buying into an investment pool and that the real estate is just the vehicle for their return on investment. “Instead of investing your money you are investing your credit”. The homebuyer /consumer is promised a small amount of return upfront then a certain return on the profit when each house is sold. The third party would purchase several homes with the consumers credit sometimes up to ten homes in a 30 day period. The reason the loan officer would have to do it in a 30 day period is to be able to purchase all the homes with no money down owner occupied. The loan officer would shop the loan to different lenders and since the credit reports have a 90 day delay, the institutional investors would not know that the consumer had other homes. Therefore the bank would be unaware the current one was not an owner occupied home, and lend on the home with favorable owner occupied loan to values.This process would repeat itself until the consumer could no longer qualify for anymore no money down loans.

The consumer doesn’t realize they have a problem until a few months down the road when the banks start contacting them for payment and sending them notices of default or they try to apply for credit and their credit is shot due to the defaulting.

The results are devastating to the real estate market, Homeowners will soon be paying higher rates due to the new fraud risk ,less money for the banks to loan since they are losing 50-60% on the old money they have already lent, hence the new credit crunch, artificially high property taxes and legitimate buyers who used these fraudulent puffed up price comparables to buy their current home are now going to be upside down.

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It’s not just sellers who get caught up in mortgage fraud, Steve Hawks of ReMax Platinum said.

Thousands of unsuspecting home buyers in Las Vegas become victims through cash-back deals involving the seller, mortgage lender, appraiser and other essential parties in real estate transactions. Almost every one of them is pitched as an investment, he said.

“Let us use your credit and you’ll get $5,000 back,” Hawks said. “Little do they know that there’s anywhere from $25,000 to $180,000 getting kicked back to a third-party LLC (limited liability corporation) that the buyer doesn’t know about.

“The houses were never worth what they were sold for in the first place, Hawks said.

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service showed a Feb. 1, 2005, sale price of $490,000 for a house at 2073 Fountain City St. in Henderson. However, the Clark County Assessor’s Office has a recorded value of $800,000 for the sale. The home apparently went into foreclosure and was purchased from U.S. Bank trustee’s deed in September for $375,000.

“Buyers don’t find out it’s happening until they get a notice of default. The third party rents the house and pays no mortgage. Now when the buyer tries to sell the house, they’re overpriced,” Hawks said. “It’s happening to thousands of people.”Jim Garvey of Las Vegas said he got suckered into real estate investing through a client in his automobile detailing business. He had established a good business relationship and personal friendship with the client, who helped Garvey increase his revenue from $2,000 a month to $20,000 a month by bringing him more business.

Garvey would receive $5,000 cash for any house he bought using his credit and $1,000 for any referrals. When he went to sign the papers for one house in the northwest, the price had gone from $459,000 to $600,000, he said.

“It was a little out of my league, but he said it’s an investment property and he’d rent the yard out for $4,500 a month, so my payment would just be $500,” Garvey said.

Garvey ended up buying five homes that were supposed to be recorded under a limited liability corporation. He got suspicious when his sister, who joined the real estate investment venture, called and said her name was on a foreclosure list. All of the homes have started foreclosure and are up for short sale, which means they are being offered for less than what’s owed to the bank.

Hawks said he examined title work on several homes and found that someone had removed an addendum that instructs the title company to issue checks to a third-party limited liability corporation. The document is removed or hidden, either way with same result, he said.

For example, a $500,000 listing is bumped to $800,000 and $300,000 gets kicked back to the third party through the addendum. If the institutional investor knew about the $300,000 cash, they would never buy the loan. That’s why the addendum has to be pulled or hidden, Hawks said.

“This is why Credit Suisse and other institutional investors are pulling out of Vegas. This is why Vegas is going to take a dive worse than anyone thought,” he said.Hawks said Las Vegas will soon see many cases of this type. Higher mortgage rates are just one repercussion of the puffed-up price, cash-back fraud, he said.

“The FBI agent says ‘unscrupulous behavior on the part of a few,’ which is exactly the same with Realtors. Just a few are conspiring with these modern-day bank robbers. These few are causing huge financial losses for the many,” Hawks said.

He referred to a lawsuit filed July 3 in Nevada District Court alleging that “highly inflated false appraisals were used to trick (lender) FMFC into making significantly larger loans decimating FMFC’s loan-to-value requirement.”

FMFC claims to have incurred significant losses in remedying loans that were issued fraudulently and at inflated purchases prices.

“Institutional lenders are lending on 80-20 loan-to-value,” Hawks said. “They think they’re loaning $160,000 on a $200,000 home when people only paid $120,000. They don’t see the kickback. This kind of mortgage fraud is devastating to the market and people that buy legitimately on market comps, they don’t see these (kickbacks).”

The pyramid flipping scheme generally requires participation by a number of “conspiracy” members, the lawsuit said.

They include speculators who purchase the property through fraudulent means such as fabricating information about the property, buyer or seller to make the transaction appear financially sound, only to resell the property; appraisers who overstate the value of the property; and title companies that provide a facade of legitimacy to the scheme by fraudulently preparing documents for closing escrow and disbursing checks to the participants.

“The only way these deals get done is if the Realtor knows, the title company knows, the appraiser knows,” Hawks said.

Hawks said he’s seen million-dollar homes purchased with $500,000 kickbacks in which the buyer never makes a payment and lets it go back to the bank. Sometimes it’s a “straw buyer” who knows what’s going on, but most of the time the buyer has no idea, he said.

“This is like stocks in 2000, so nobody knows what the true value of a home in Las Vegas is right now. That’s why nobody’s buying,” Hawks said.